On His Own
by LizSnape
Summary: A young woman from South America comes in encounter with an old book, way in the future, about a man named Regulus Black. What is this man's story? What is great about him?


**Disclaimer: You know how it goes everyone…right? That I am just a poor college student at a community college, studying radio production and now making a cent from this. I certainly would not be going to a community college if that were the situation. The wonderful J.K. Rowling along with Warner Brothers, Bloomsbury, Scholastic and Raincoast books at least own Harry Potter and related characters. That goes along with Regulus. It is true that a lot of this story will be based on theories and speculation on my part about how Regulus Black is, but will have characters that you will recognize. There might even be HBP spoilers later, but they will be slight and I will warn you all. When I say later, I mean it. It will probably be months before I even add in the information, if I even do. Now what I want you to do is review this piece of work. Do you like it or not? I am wondering if you like the way it is written or think that I should just go and revise it. I like that idea and want to know how many do! So review and tell me what you think! I rarely get reviews and I would really like them. So do it! Now I will let you read the story. Have fun!**

She looked down at the corpse that was lying on the bed. Its eyes were closed and his whole body looked very calm and serene. She sat down on the bed and sighed deeply as a slow tear trickled down her cheek. She moved to lie down next to the corpse and put her stretched palm on his chest. Unlike the sweet love sessions, they had where she would lie there afterwards on him and feel the heart beating underneath; she did not feel it. It was scary that she did not feel it.

She felt the grey hairs of his chest while she lay there, not saying a word, but thinking about what she was going to do now. She moved her other hand and moved some of his grey hair out of his face. She went up to him and cupped his face. "Te amo, mi amor, mi querido, adios," she whispered before giving him a deep kiss and falling asleep in his arms one last time.

"Señora Rodriguez, Señora Rodriguez!"

She found herself awakening to the sound of her dead husband's trusted butler Pedro, who was shaking her awake. She slowly opened her eyes, moved some of her messy dark curls, and sat upright. She was still wearing her brown dress from yesterday. Pedro looked at her with a look of sadness and stood there waiting for her to give him an order, feeling guilty about waking her up.

"Pedro, I want you to leave me alone. I _need_ to be alone."

"Pero Señora, What of the funeral arrangements?"

She looked at him and a tear fell from her face. She quickly wiped it away from her brown eyes and looked at him sternly.

"You do it, you knew Diego longer than I did. Therefore, I am asking if you could do it all. I am not in the mood to talk to anyone. You can go now."

He hesitated, looking at his mistress with sadness, but followed his order.

Pedro went to his master's own office to start the calls. The one thing he had always liked about him was that he never treated him inferior at all. He treated him like his best friend, and that meant telling him some of his darker secrets. Things he did not even tell Señora Rodriquez.

He sat on the desk, took the phone off the hook, and started to make the arrangements. As he did, he kept staring at the safe that was staring back at him, tempting him to open it. After he was finally finished, he went to the corner where the safe lay and put his right hand on the top of it. He told him that the secret of the past lay in it, the secret of this childhood, his schooling and his first love.

This man had only come to Guatemala in the last decade or two, a stranger with a Spanish accent. He had come in a veil of mystery, carrying a reddish stick in a sort of holster tied to his waist. He bought the huge mansion that overlooked the valley and had almost put the entire village to work on cultivating the land, but allowing them to keep half of what they helped farm. Along the way, he fell in love with a beautiful young villager who had cancer of the liver. He stayed by her side and helped her beat it. He married after she was healthy. It was almost a controversy between the village since she was barely a woman. In fact, she was 18 years old at the time of the marriage, and if it were not for the fact that he was so rich and that he practically controlled the village her parents would have said no. They were too overwhelmed with whom he was and the power he had to say no. She soon became Señora Rodriquez and for ten years, they were happily married, even when it was found that the cancer had caused her to become incapable of carrying a child.

Pedro had enough; he wanted to know what was in the safe. He knew secrets this man had never told his wife, but did not know what was in this safe. What was important enough to lock away? This woman, some woman that he was in love with….What did she have to do with the safe. Are her possessions in there? What of his family? What of his schooling? All he knew was that his family was dead and that is school was a secret school that he would never find. He walked back to this man's desk and went through his desk, looking for the combination.

We went through every part of this office, searching the shelves of the desk and every single part of the office for some clue to the combination. He found nothing, looking for hours. He stopped looking and sat in his chair exhausted. He breathed a sigh of surrender, knew that this man must have never written it down, and took the secret of the safe to the grave.

Frowning he left the office, hoping some busy work would keep it out of his mind….

It finally came, the day that she loathed, the day that she would finally bury him. She opened her eyes slowly. Not wanting to do it, yet knowing that she had. This was not going to be a good sendoff for her husband. Unlike some people, he did not have that many friends here and she knew nothing of his past. Did he have friends? Did he even have a family? She did not know; what she did know was that this was not going to be fun. There were probably going to be members of the village and the press, who had learned about the death of the rich man, where he would probably get a paragraph mention inside the gossip sections of a newspaper.

She put on her black cotton dress that hugged her curves, and went down to her knees and had sleeves that went to her elbows. She put up her hair into a simple bun and wore as little makeup as possible. That was the way he liked her, natural.

As she walked outside to the courtyard, which was adorned with beautiful lilies, she thought about this man. He had always told her that his life was very full and that he had lived such a complex life that he wanted to live his final years very simply. He wanted his wife that way. She went to his coffin, opened the top of his casket, and kissed him softly on the lips. She then heard footsteps in the background.

She knew that her servants would come later, seeing as she told them to go home for the last few days and come back for the funeral. She did not know who it was and widened her eyes, not knowing who this person was. She slowly turned around and looked at the figure.

What she saw was an elderly man and woman. They both looked similar, both having graying, long hair and the same bright grey eyes. The woman was wearing a patched black dress, made of different black patches and wearing the same cloth holster holding a stick as her husband did. She was wearing a very frayed and old looking coat that had holes all over the place. The man was wearing black pants and a black sweater that looked like it was used as the living quarters for a generation of moths. He was not wearing a coat like the woman, but looked equally as poor and perhaps desperate.

The woman ran to his casket, looking at the corpse with a look of sadness. She did not cry in a dramatic manner, she just cried silently. She put a finger to his cheek and massaged his temple. Meanwhile her brother went to an empty seat and sat down struggling with the feat. She tried to help him, but shoed her away.

"You must be Antonio's wife," he said weakly. She looked at him confused.

"You must have made a mistake, my husband was called Diego."

The woman turned around, smiling, silent tears falling from her face. The man chuckled silently.

"Por supuesto Señora! Diego was a name that I used to call him a long time ago. Antonio…Diego was my soul mate. I _loved_ him." She looked back at the younger woman who looked uncomfortable.

The old man coughed erratically and the woman ran to him as well as she could and took out what looked like a test tube holding a violet colored liquid. She popped the cork and fed him the liquid. He drank it up in between coughs and soon looked better. She rubbed his back and he smiled up to her.

"Thanks hermana," he said and smiled at her. The older woman turned around and looked at the widow. They looked at each other and did not say a word, silently studying each other. The younger woman was the first to speak.

"So you knew Diego?" She asked her, not believing that a woman that looks like she did would know him.

"Yes. A long time ago, we were together. A long time ago, we were in love. I thought that we would die together, but it never ended out like that. I learned a terrible lesson about life in those years we were together. I hate to say that I never recovered, but it is true. I am the reason he moved here and I am the reason he became the man he did."

Señora Rodriguez just looked at the older woman in shock. She had inferred that he must have met someone, but this woman was not the woman she would have thought of. She thought she would be different. Maybe it was just the way she looked, or what she wore. All she knew was that she looked old and weak.

The woman looked at her inquisitively and had a regal sense to her as she did that. The woman gave a small smile and seemed to answer her thoughts.

"I am not what you expected. I can see that. You expected me to look different. I am some poor woman who claims to love a rich man. My brother Rigel and I did not end up this way, but wars happen, people loose. My brother and I were survivors in our terrible generation and we are alive to tell the tale. Our life and what lessons we learn are complex, but simple Señora Rodriguez."

She took went through her pockets and took out a piece of paper. She gave it to her and her brother nodded behind her.

"This is the combination for Antonio's safe. This holds the secret of him and my past. This tells the story of my father and how he changed a life of terrible servitude into a life of retribution and forgiveness. The book that you find in there, all tattered in torn is the life journey of a man and his children. It is as good as any story you will read about. It is a great story and one that I want you to tell the world about. I want you to learn about the story of my father and his children. I want you to learn the story of Regulus Black."

Señora Rodriguez looked down at the numbers on the paper and analyzed them: 8-17-20

By the time, she looked up to ask them about the paper, they were gone.

The funeral seemed to never end for her. There were those that were sad, like the villages and the servants, but there were also those that did not care about the man. Woman who stereotypically looked like they authored a gossip column and people who looked too regal and strange to have known them. She was surprised at how many people were there, but not surprised at who was there. The one thing that had started to anger her as she went to put a lily on the grave and watch it fall into the Earth was the two elderly siblings. They had come and soon enough had vanished, like magic. These people were not here now and if it were not for the paper, she would not have believed they even existed. So this ragged woman knew Diego, yet called her Antonio? She was starting to question their sincerity.

The next few days seemed to pass very slowly. She had stayed in the house, knowing it was hers and knowing that she would be clouded by memories of this man. She knew that there was going to be a will since he was so depressing at times, thinking only of death. He would tell her that everyone would be hers and that there was no reason to think that some long lost love would come to his funeral talking cryptically. That thought made her believe that this woman was real and that she had given her the combination to the safe.

This man named Regulus Black must have some story, to have it written in a book. What did her husband have to do with this? She wanted answers, but was too afraid to look for them. She instead kept the numbers hidden in her jewelry box, not knowing if she would ever have the courage to unlock the safe.

It was two months later when she even remotely thought of the safe. His death has died down and no one really thought of it. The towns' people continued their living, having heard from her that things would be the same. She had kept the same people and did not even think of changing the servants. Many men had come here looking for her hand in marriage, hoping that she would accept and they would become rich. She did not need these men now; she did not want another man in her bed. She wanted Diego, but that was not a possibility now.

She had gone into the jewelry box, had found the numbers, and knew that she had to do this. She had to know what was hidden in the safe; she had to know what secrets this man kept.

She almost ran to his office and regretted doing it, since it was dark and not an easy place to walk around in at night. After tripping and getting a few scrapes, she came to his office. She turned on the light and almost cried. She remembered this place, she remembered sitting on his lap, kissing him sweetly. She had to forget that, she had more important things to do right now. She went to the safe and looked at the numbers.

She moved it clockwise twice and hit three notches past five. She moved it once counterclockwise once and hit the 17, two notches past the 15. She then moved it in the opposite direction on the notch named 20. She walked back as it opened by itself and waited to see what surprises she would find.

She had expected to find pictures, maybe of the old woman at a younger age, maybe old clothing, maybe some artifact. She was disappointed to only find the book the woman talked of. All she saw was an old book that seemed to have been dipped in water. She did not think that there would be just a book! How stupid, why not a wedding ring, why not anything, besides an old and stupid book! She took the book, threw it on the ground, and thought it would turn into dust and die. It did not, it stayed there.

A part of her was curious, what kind of book would be locked up in a safe? What kind of book would even hold up as this one would? She wanted to know. She picked up the book and brought it up to her chest. She hugged it and smelled it. It smelled of cabbage, which made her wonder even more. She went to his desk and opened the book. It creaked. She then looked at some type of signature.

_On His Own, the incredible story of Regulus Black and his children. _She wanted to know more of this Regulus Black. She wanted to do what the elderly woman wanted. She wanted to tell everyone about this man.

She started to read on…_October 16, 1962, the birth of the youngest Black…._


End file.
